Prevalence of Gender Role Reversal among spouses in Nyeri County, Kenya

Although there is a growing concern about reversal of gender roles among spouses in patriarchal societies in the developed and developing world, not much is known about the extent of the prevalence of the reversal and the factors contributing to it in Nyeri County Kenya. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to establish the extent of prevalence of reversal of the provider, decision making, childcare and home keeping roles among spouses in Nyeri County, and the factors contributing to it. The study used a descriptive survey design with mixed methods. The target population was married Kikuyu men and women with dependent children and not necessarily couples. Multi-stage sampling was used to select a sample of 392 participants constituting of 200 women and 192 men.68 focus group participants were purposively sampled from the 392. Data was collected using questionnaire and focus group discussions. Descriptive statistics were used in the analysis of quantitative data while qualitative data was thematically analysed. The findings revealed a 48.2 % and a 48 % prevalence of reversal of the provider and decision making roles respectively and a 7.7 % prevalence of reversal of childcare and home keeping roles. Alcohol abuse and inadequate gender role socialization were found to be the main contributing factors to the role reversal. The highest ranked suggested interventions by both gender were psychosocial, namely, family life education, marital counselling, and reverting to traditional socialization practices.